The Canadian Forum/Editorial/1921-05

The Canadian Forum/Editorial 1921-05 written by [[|]]

Secondary School Reform

When one out of every five workmen in Canada is idle, unemployment has ceased to be merely a sign of temporary industrial stagnation. It has reached the proportions of a national emergency of the first magnitude. Hopes, always vain, have been expressed that the coming summer would see the end of the business depression. Now these have faded. We are face to face with the realization that before things can be better they must be worse. Even if there is an increase in employment in the months before us — and there may be — many will remain out of work who have already suffered considerably. The distress among them will increase. It is a trite but true saying that a desperate situation demands desperate remedies; and the present situation is desperate enough to warrant them. We have four classes of unemployed workers to deal with — the married workers with families, unmarried workers with dependents, unmarried workers without dependents, and the won't-works. The last, happily very few in number, must be totally disregarded, and if they become troublesome, must be dealt with firmly. Unmarried workers without dependents have already, at least in Toronto, been notified that relief can no longer be given them. So long as an unsatisfied demand for farm labour exists, they must as a matter of expediency be sent to the farms at any wage they can get. The public authorities must see that the remainder are provided for, cost what it may.

At present we are compelled as a nation to concern ourselves rather with the maintenance, than with the reform of the social system. Our immediate problem is to face an immediate emergency — to lessen, as much as possible, the hardship that many must suffer. Despite our best efforts, distress will be rife in the winter ahead of us. The relations between capital and labour will grow more bitter. The destitute worker finds it difficult to believe that a social system in which many live in comfort while he starves, is one which can be defended. Here and there he may resort to violence. The situation is one that calls, not for vague alarm, but for our deepest sympathy. While violence can do nothing but aggravate our troubles — while the wisest of our labour leaders will set their faces against it — while government must continue to discharge the first of its duties, and preserve public order — it will only make the situati worse if we declaim against the bogey of Canadian Bolshevism. Hunger will do far more than the "Bolshevist Agent" to stir up revolt against the social order, and it is against hunger, rather than against Bolshevism, that our efforts must mainly be directed. A policy confined to the repression of discontent, at best, will deal only with symptoms.

From its second session the Farmer-Labour Government of Ontario emerges if not with distinction at least without discredit. A good deal of time, it is true, was wasted in discussion. Strong measures are difficult, however, where a government has to depend on the good-will of members in opposition for a working majority; and at best the closure is an unwholesome alternative to free discussion. As a matter of fact, especially during the late session, ordinary parliamentary proceedure^(sic!) has been altered to suit the unusual conditions. Thus in the rush of eleventh hour legislation we find a Prime Minister introducing an amendment to a bill introduced by a member of his cabinet and farmer members expressing disagreement on an important bill with the opinion of their leader which none the less becomes law. The most important acts of a long session were those relating to rural credits and to the bonusing of electrical lines in rural districts. The main things Mr. Drury will need to defend before the country will be Mr. Biggs' lapse into patronage and Mr. Smith's unique method of selling bonds. More serious, if less spectacular, has been the failure of such departments as that of Education and Lands and Forests after eighteen months tenure of office to have formulated wide reforms where reforms are badly needed and long overdue. However, even here something has been done and more can be done by administration within laws already existing.

The Dominion Act imposing the Tax on Business Profits passed in 1916, was amended in 1917, 1918, 1919 and 1920. The Income War Tax was [p. 227] imposed in 1917, and was altered in 1918, 1919 and 1920. The Sales Tax was subject to similar changes and a Turnover Tax may be expected to undergo more or less frequent modifications. Changes introduced in successive years may in an abstract sense be desirable; some of them may be of such a nature that necessity for their adoption could not be anticipated; nevertheless all of these changes are open to objection. A better financial result might have been obtained by leaving the original method of collecting the tax in each case as it was. It is extremely doubtful that net advantage has been derived from any of the changes, while an immense disadvantage has accrued through the setting up each year of a series of fresh reactions.

One very extraordinary change has taken effect this year. The Income Tax payer is now obliged to draw up his own bill. How far this may result in economy of collection is a question which cannot as yet be answered. It seems likely for some years to induce much correspondence which would otherwise be unnecessary. The change of the date at which the payment of the income tax is due has brought the payments of taxes for two years into charge within one calendar year. Whatever may be the reason for this change and however convenient it may be for the Finance Minister to receive two years taxes in one year, the inconvenience to the tax payer is obvious. For example a tax payer who paid $100 in taxes upon his small income in January 1921, finds himself under the necessity of paying another $100 within a few months instead of having to meet this sum in the following January. From the fiscal point of view the expedient is indefensible, the budget receipts are unduly inflated for one year, and comparison of these receipts with past and future years becomes very difficult. If such changes in the methods of taxation continue under pressure of this or that contingency or from this or that side, the tax system of this country can never be stable, and without stability the incidence of taxation can never be even approximately equitable. The more trouble and annoyance the taxpayer is subjected to, and the greater the feeling of injustice with which he is inspired, the more he will be disposed to evasion and therefore the less will be the yield to the Treasury.

So consistently have the advocates of each successive scheme of imperial reform deplored the absence in the dominions of an instructed public opinion on imperial affairs that one may be excused for wondering if the reproach is not inspired almost as much by opposition as by ignorance. If we are told that we have always been too stupid to appreciate the beauty, the faultless logic, of the latest plan, we must, of course, plead guilty to the charge; but are we, at the same time, to admit that there exists in Canada no sound public opinion on imperial affairs? One hesitates to think so. It is true that there are many fresh problems, some of them arising out of the war, that require more thought and study than have yet been given to them. It is true that the treatment of these problems in our press is, as a rule, inadequate and superficial. It is true also that, in these days, one seldom hears in Parliament a sensible discussion of any imperial question. Yet one cannot but believe that beneath this shallowness and insincerity there does exist a fairly definite and very widely-held opinion on imperial affairs, and that it was this opinion, cautious, even obstructive, but opportunist in the best sense of the word, that Sir Robert Borden gave voice to in the recent debate on the forthcoming conference of Prime Ministers in London.

Judging from his speech, Sir Robert Borden, notwithstanding the many reassuring statements that have been issued both here and in London, looks forward with apprehension to the conference next month. He stated quite plainly that in his opinion the present was no time to discuss the problem of imperial defence, which is now avowed as the principal object of the conference; and he expressed a hope (coming from him the words sound almost ominous) that we had not "undergone untold sacrifices merely to learn that there is to be no respite from the intolerable burden of armaments". Now Sir Robert Borden would, one may be sure, be the last person to oppose any reasonable arrangements with regard to imperial defence, or to use alarming words without justification. Obviously then, he must see in the conference an attempt to rush the dominions into undesirable commitments, both military and diplomatic; and it is safe to assume further that his fears are inspired chiefly from London, for in closing he expressed a confident belief that Mr. Meighen would prove himself as stout an upholder of dominion rights as any of his predecessors.

We wish we could say that this belief had been confirmed by the extremely non-committal speech that Mr. Meighen later contributed to the debate, or by his announcement that Mr. Ballantyne would accompany him to the conference. The truth is that the Prime Minister threw away a magnificent opportunity. If he had taken his stand quite definitely and explicitly with Sir Robert Borden, and at the same time announced that he had persuaded Mr. Rowell or even Sir George Foster to accompany him to London, he would have gone a long way towards allaying the suspicion that this conference has aroused throughout the country — a suspicion not in any way dispelled by Mr. Churchill's recent description of it as a meeting of the regular imperial cabinet. Instead he spoke resentfully of Mr. King's [p. 229] motion as an attempt to fetter his discretion, and named as his adviser at this momentous meeting a man who has never displayed either the knowledge or the statesmanlike qualities that should be possessed by one who will be called upon to discuss such fateful and far reaching issues. How long will it be before Mr. Meighen realizes that the Canadian people are entitled to a definite statement of his imperial policy?

It would be foolish to attempt to prophesy, even a few hours ahead, the immediate outcome of the reparations crisis. At the time of writing the German government still has a few days left in which to accept, but not to negotiate, the allies' latest terms. In the meantime the French go forward with their preparations, and the British government, notwithstanding weighty protests from the City, stands by its promise to coöperate. Apparently anything short of a complete surrender will make the occupation of the Ruhr inevitable; and even surrender may not deter the French from enforcing, alone if necessary, their so-called sanctions; for the parties of the Right, already disappointed by the decision not to advance on May 1st, press for a display of force, regardless either of the results or the consequences, and M. Briand is in their power. He is reported to have said, as he left a meeting of the Supreme Council in Downing Street a few days ago, that he had "his back to the wall". He has; the whole force of the powerful group of reactionaries in Paris is pushing him, and with him Mr. Lloyd George, towards this crazy solution of force. One thing is certain; nothing can arise out of this situation, acceptance or non-acceptance, that will mean a lasting solution of the problem of reparations.

So far as the actual claims are concerned, the merits of the dispute, have, as usual, been presented in an obscure and partial manner. The figure named at Paris three months ago has been abandoned for a new one computed by the Reparations Commission, which, judging from the meagre reports available, bears little closer relation to the realities of the situation than did the earlier one. For, so long as the French demands remain so grossly in excess of anything that can be paid, the Germans are almost forced to expend their energy in devising means, not of meeting these demands, but of avoiding them. But once the Reparations Commission reduces its claims to something commensurate with the material damage inflicted, the Germans can properly be required to show why they cannot make good that damage. Then, and only then, will it be possible to determine how far the undeniable economic necessities (not simply of Germany but of a half-ruined Europe) interfere with the satisfaction of the just claims of France. In the meantime the other allies, and the English government is chiefly responsible, allow the exigencies of French politics to threaten the re-establishment of Europe. The situation is grave beyond exaggeration, and it must in spite of any apparent relief, remain grave until a fundamental change occurs in French policy.

A recent despatch informs us that Captain O. E. Wheeler has been given charge of the photographic survey work on the Younghusband Expedition against Mount Everest. This is good news to Canadians and especially to Canadian mountaineers. Captain Wheeler got his education in the mountains and in the schools of Canada. His father, Mr. A. O. Wheeler, was the organizer and first president of the Alpine Club of Canada. From his early teens Oliver Wheeler was much in the mountains with his father, who was at that time engaged in conducting a photographic survey of the strip of the Rockies adjacent to the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway which remained under federal control. In the course of this work it was nedessary to blaze trails through forests known, if at all, only to trappers, and to carry instruments up mountains many of which had never felt the foot of man. Young Wheeler in the course of several summers became skilled in the varied technique of mountaineering, excelling in rock climbing especially. His winters were spent at Trinity College School and the Royal Military College, where he graduated first in his class. Entering the army he was sent to India, and during the war served with distinction in the East. Last summer he visited his home, and those who met him at the Assiniboine Camp of the Alpine Club of Canada, where he directed the climbing expeditions, found the quiet and resourceful youth they had known matured, not changed, by years and experience. They are confident that in the attempt to conquer the greatest of the world's mountains he will bring honour to himself and to Canada.

The second annual exhibition of the Group of Seven is now being held at the Art Gallery of Toronto. It reveals more convincingly than any exhibition which we can recall the vigorous independent character of the best Canadian painting. There are both landscapes and portraits in this collection which would command respect in any gallery of contemporary art and would go a long way towards establishing our right to be regarded henceforth as an adult nation. But it can be said without malice that these pictures would be more heartily and more acutely appreciated in an older country. For whilst we have always had unlimited confidence in what our muscle can do, we are still somewhat uneasy in matters of the mind, and especially of the creative mind. If it is true, however, that the nation's character is pouring itself into the [p. 230] visual arts, it is profoundly important that the fact be recognized early and widely. Our health and worth as a nation depends ultimately on the self-knowledge that comes from such recognition. One who has lived for some years in Canada but is not native-born said the other day. "These painters have made me feel Canadian. I always used to feel a stranger in the country but after seeing and enjoying all these Canadian pictures I don't feel so any longer". We take it for granted that he very rapidly adjusted his diet to our climate and soon discovered the most easeful brand of underwear but that these only imperfectly Canadianized him. We commend this little incident to the guardians of the nation.

A canadian Authors' Association has just been formed. Its official organ is the Canadian Bookman. The Association appears to have arisen as a protest against the recent Copyright Bill which was ruthlessly dictated by the printing interests and is certainly one of the least defensible pieces of protectionist legislation that we have heard of. The first act of the new orgnaization^(sic!) has been to report destructively on the Copyright Bill and to ensure that it will be re-written with due regard to the prior rights of authorship. The Association promises to be more in the nature of a union than of an academy, but we note with satisfaction that it does not stop there. Its first object is "To act for the mutual benefit and protection of the interests of Canadian Authors and for the maintenance of high ideals and practice in the literary profession". But there are two objects here, not one, and they very often conflict with one another. The one calls for vigorous self-protection and the other for vigorous self-criticism which is much more difficult. We hope that the Association will give due attention to the vices and virtues of the book reviewer and the publisher's advertiser. Bad reviewing and cheap advertising of literature are just as injurious to high ideals as bad legislation and they are harder to control. We have pointed out what we feel to be a fundamental and quite unavoidable dilemma in the function of the Association. If it can be dealt with satisfactorily the rest should be plain sailing.